


For God so Loved

by Fluerdumal



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:54:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24636391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluerdumal/pseuds/Fluerdumal
Summary: Who is the monster and who is the man?
Relationships: Kazehaya Tatsumi / HiMERU
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	For God so Loved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like wild horses let my headcanons drag me away
> 
> This fic was originally going to be 3 parts and this was just the "prologue" so sorry if it's anticlimactic, but since the first section was getting long I decided to break them up. The majority of the story will be told as a flashback.

The music is just a bit too loud. Or maybe it’s not the music, but the tonal sludge of so many voices chattering about banalities. How disappointing. Even a gathering this large of society’s wealth and glitterati seems to be focused on only a single topic. _Idols_. As if they’re the only thing of worth in this world. As if the recent revival means that we can let down our guard, breathe a sigh of relief, and simply reclaim our place at the top.

Idols…  
Towering, godlike beings

They scare me.

Despite the fact that I play one.

Looking across the sea of high class, trendily-dressed people, I can’t help but acknowledge that this is HiMERU’s world. He thrives here, where he can easily become the gravitational pull on even these elite people’s attention. But “I” have no interest in that. _Because you are not one of them._ For me the dark spaces around the edges of the room are the coziest. Where the pulsating party lights merely flicker and even the brightest of colors blur into grey and black. Performing every day and keeping up with idol work is hard. Sometimes I just want to escape those spotlights and return to being “me.” 

Even if “I” am not a person worth returning to. 

Smiling at such unpleasant thoughts, I drift through the party as though outside of it. Even if their conversations are empty, people by themselves are endlessly interesting. Producers…Managers…Journalists…People who own large venues, people who design merchandising, and those who code the sites they use to sell it. If an industry, with all its complex interlocking parts, is an organism, then we humans are but its cells. Independently breathing for something else’s sake. Thinking of it like that, even a party this extravagant isn’t really glamorous at all.

But a gust of wind steals my attention by billowing a smoke-like curtain across my face. As it settles I can see through it the silhouette of someone who has had enough with the heat and vibratos of the lascivious dance floor to seek a moment’s respite on the balcony outside. 

_How curious._

Hoping to find a kindred spirit I make my way to the door, though my excitement is immediately extinguished as soon as I recognize just who it is leaning against the railing, pale aqua hair silvered by moonlight.

“Kazehaya Tatsumi.”

I should have known.

“Why do I always seem to run into you at these things?”

He meets my look of distaste with the grin of a man speaking to a particularly precocious child.

“HiMERU-san. So you were here after all. I was hoping you’d attend.”

His violet eyes invite me with no other gesture beyond their gaze, and though I know exactly how the spell behind them works, I give in and meet him in the starlight. Below us the city sparkles like a vibrant rainbow galaxy, and above the real galaxies glimmer with their cool and distant mystery. Looking at them both like this it’s only natural to wonder which is more beautiful, the heaven made by god or mankind? My answer would be the latter, obviously, just as the person next to me would surely choose the former. That is the space between us, after all. I chance a sidelong peek at him, body shamelessly basking in, no, _embodying_ the moon’s glow. And though we are both here standing underneath the same night sky, I can’t help but think that there is no way that light shines down on both of us the same.

“Despite everything that’s happened, HiMERU still has quite a few connections. But these parties are never as interesting towards the end as they are at the beginning.”

In response Tatsumi simply laughs. His voice somehow both hearty and light. 

“I guess you and I are similar after all.”

The way he softly smiles when he says that gives me a disgusted feeling.

“This time it’s my father’s connections which got me here, though.” He motions to his clothes and I note that he’s wearing a clergyman’s stately gold and black. “I’m attending more as a priest than an idol.”

“You aren’t getting much solo work anymore, are you? What a shame. One would think the return of the great legend Kazehaya Tatsumi would warrant plenty of fanfare and acclaim.”

I carefully study his face as I say this, my heart quickening for just a beat. But it’s not like simple words can shake a saint. And instead of answering the question I planted in the cracks, he continues with a complete non sequitur, turning away from me back to face the glittering navy sky.

“We met on a night just like this.”

I join him, my hot hands tingling at the contrast with the ice cold railing. Images of the heavens prickling my eyes.

“Is that what you believe?”

“Huh? Don’t you remember? I can tell by the constellations.”

I don’t say anything, merely swallowing as I try not to think _Why would he remember something like that?_ about how close our bodies are forced to be in order to fit on this narrow balcony. But no matter what my pride won’t allow me to let us touch.

“I never took you to be the stargazing type.”

“I’m not. I’ve just spent a lot of time looking at them. When I was younger. In the hospital, too. Aren’t they beautiful?”

He points, and in the pearly gleam of the moon above and the city below he is like a wizard holding up a magic wand towards miracles close enough to dream of but too far away to reach. 

I follow the direction of his finger to his face

“Yes.”

before letting it lead my eyes to the shape of the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie I haven't been able to get Tatsumeru out of my head for months. I have been patiently (?) waiting to learn more about them but my third eye is vibrating and I just can't put it back in the box.
> 
> I'm not really used to writing in first person so I thought it would be fun to try. My aim for this story is something a bit more personal and experimental. Sorry if it's off-putting. 
> 
> I make several references to Dante Aligheri's _Comedia_ because I have no self restraint so I will endeavor to explain it in the least nerdy way possible at the very end.


End file.
